Week 15: Lisboa, Portugal

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Sorry this is going to be a long one…internet did not want to corporate at all this last week so this is week 15. Week 16 will be up shortly after.

So this week started off good, hit a rough patch and then turned out to be incredible. The week started off with me heading to work bright and early Monday morning. I had a really good relaxing weekend and I was more than ready to start up again. I spent the first two hours of class with the 2nd graders, as usual. They were all so excited to be back at school and kept telling me all about the gifts the Three Kings brought them. After 2nd grade I headed to 5th grade where I “got” to do secretarial work for the teacher. Finally about half way through the class she sent a small group of students to work with individually. After our patio break I headed to 1st grade. Our normal teacher for 1st grade is now on maternity leave and unfortunately the school had yet to find a replacement for her. It was great because I got to teach the class, but I didn´t know about it until last minute. It was a slow start to try to find all the materials the kids needed and comprehend the lesson plan, which was written in Spanish, but eventually I got everything together, gave my lesson and then had the kids complete some bookwork. Overall it was an okay lesson but very hectic and not nearly as organized as I would have liked. . After 1st grade I headed back to 2nd grade where again I took the students out to ask them questions. This last group of kids struggled a lot more than the 1st group. I feel like they did not work on any English at all over the break and they forgot everything. I felt like I was pulling out their teeth just to get simple responses and sometimes none at all. After school I had lunch with the teachers and then I spent a few hours in the computer lab trying to kill some time before my tutoring session. Finally it was time for my first lesson. Marco and I spent the hour playing with Thomas and friends, on his miniature keyboard, singing songs and reading about animal. Overall it was a really great lesson for him. After Marco’s house I headed to Ignacio’s where we spent the hour playing I spy, bingo, hangman and reading about legos in his new book from the Three Kings. After tutoring I took the bus back home and relaxed with my roommates until heading off to bed.

Tuesday is where things went downhill. I woke up in the morning with an e-mail from my mom saying that my grandmother had a stroke and was in the hospital. Unfortunately my internet wasn’t working so I couldn’t get a hold of them right away to find out what was happening. Finally it started working again and I was able to get on Skype with them. My Mom and dad didn’t know much at that point but they explained what they could. It’s hard to be so far away when something like this happens. I know that I couldn’t have done anything if I had been there but I still want to be there. My coordinator told me not to come in for the day so I could work things out and not to stress about work. I spent the day working out, reading and trying to relax and forget about my worries. Around 2 pm I took the bus out to San Agustin for my tutoring. I didn’t want to cancel the few sessions I had for the day and I knew it would be a great way to distract me. My first lesson was with the two sisters. When I arrived they gave me a Christmas present, a scarf. It was really sweet. After that we spent the hour playing skip Bo. They loved it! I will definitely bring it again for them to play with. After their lesson I had an hour and a half break, Miguel’s lessons won’t start until Thursday, so I spent my time in the café drinking hot chocolate. Finally it was time for my last lesson of the day. I headed to Nacho’s house where we worked on English (possessive adjectives v. possessive pronouns) and science. After taking the bus back to Madrid I got on the internet and bought flights for some weekend trips around Europe. I am so excited about them!

Wednesday I woke up early and headed to work again. The 1st hour of class I stayed in the classroom and helped the students with the book work and the 2nd hour I took them out individually again. The few I took out did amazingly today, so much better than Monday. From there I headed off to 5th grade. The class began with the students giving 30 second speeches on arthropods. So we listened and gave some positive feedback for each of the students. After the speeches Monica sent a small group of students to me so we could correct the homework together. After Patio I headed back to 2nd grade for the last hour of my day. Again I stayed in class to help the students with the book work. By the time they were done my day was over so I took the early bus back to Madrid. I spent the afternoon working out, cleaning, writing last my blog and crashing pretty early.

Thursday my week started to improve again. Mom and Dad had more information about grandma and she was doing much better. It is going to be a long battle but she is stubborn and a fighter. When I got to work I spent the 1st two hours with 2nd grade, taking them out individually again. After that I headed to 5th grade. Monica wasn’t feeling well so I was finally able to do something in her class. I spent the day going over their homework and then completing worksheets about arthropods in class. At patio I printed off some information for my coming trip over the weekend. When I was finished I headed to 3rd grade where the students were learning who, what, when, where, why and how. They had to complete a worksheet so I spent the hour helping the students individually. They understand most of it except how. It was a challenge for them. After 3rd grade I was off to 1st, where I found a new teacher! His name is Sergio and he seems pretty nice. They only issue is he is a new teacher who really doesn’t have much experience. He pretty much let the class do whatever they wanted. It was his 1st day so I am hoping that next week he will improve. After school I took the bus to San Agustin for tutoring. I spent my first hour with Veronica and Carlos. They had a vocabulary test the next day so all we did was practice the long list. They do well but always want grade for each practice test we do, and they get really upset if they only get an 8 out of 10. Personally and 8 out of 10 is still good but they get so mad! They will write really mean notes and say shit, but in Spanish. I tell them to stop and I know what they are saying but they don’t listen. Their behavior is really terrible. After their lesson I spent the next hour and half with Miguel. We spent the hour working on English homework. His mom wants me to tutor his older sister as well. So either I will have another session during the week or I will split the time between the two siblings. Either way I think it will be okay. After Miguel’s house I went to the two sister’s house again. Unfortunately this lesson was very crazy. The mom and dad left as soon as I arrived so the girls completely misbehaved. They ran to the kitchen and got food, they ran around the house, and they kept listening to music. We tried to play word games but it did not work out well at all. After the lesson I headed back to my house and started packing for the weekend. Laura came over soon after. We spent the evening relaxing and planned on heading to bed early; we were taking a taxi to the airport at 5 in the morning.

Wow 430 in the morning came so early on Friday. Laura and I got all our stuff together and caught a taxi outside my apartment to head to the airport. We arrived at the airport and parted ways, she was in terminal 1 where as I was in terminal 2. I got all checked in and then headed towards my gate. The flight to Lisbon was a quick hour but we had a little problem with the landing. When we made it to Lisbon it was completely covered in fog. The pilot took the plane down to land and just as we were making it through the clouds he shot the plane straight back up until we were above the clouds again. We flew in a large circle for about a half an hour before we finally tried landing again, and this time we had no problems. Upon arriving at the airport I met up with Laura, Amy (an auxiliarie from Australia) and three of Amy’s friends from Australia (Matt, Leora, and Jess). We took the bus into town and set off in search of our hostel. We found our hostel very easily, and arrived just in time for a free tour of the city. We put our stuff in the room and then headed out to see some sites. The first place we went was to a church right near our hostel. The church had survived the 1755 earthquake and although it was small it was still beautiful. From there Fillipa (our tour guide) took us to a beautiful viewpoint of the city, the sun wasn’t cooperating but it was still amazing to see. After the view we walked down to the main square and main shopping center of the city. We took a slight detour and arrived at a cathedral that had survived the fire in the 60’s, however with complete destruction to the architecture. It was absolutely unbelievable; all the marble figurines and pillars were melted down. The city left this cathedral in this state to remind everyone of what happened. It was also very interesting because when we arrived a mass was occurring. It was interesting to see the few people that were there and how everything fit together. From the cathedral we continued down the main street to the plaza commercial, which holds the oldest harbor for Lisbon. In front of the harbor we used our bodies to spell out Lisboa and everyone started taking pictures of us. It was hilarious. We definitely looked like a bunch of tourists. From here Fillipa and the six of us parted ways. We took the tram out to Belem where we went to a tower, which resembled a chess piece, which was used to defend the harbor. About this time the sun was finally starting to come out and it made the city look even more beautiful. We walked down the board walk until we came across the next monument in front of the twin to the golden gate bridge. Across from this monument was a beautiful garden that led up to the monastery. Before heading into the monastery we stopped off at a restaurant for lunch. The food in Lisbon was amazing and so much cheaper than in Spain. We had some delicious pastries, “pastrei de nata”, and took a quick tour through the monastery. Compared to the cathedrals we had seen earlier in the day it honestly was not the impressive, but I am still glad we went and saw it. After the monastery we took the tram back into the city where we split up into two groups. Some of our group wanted to rest while the other part wanted to walk around and see more of the city. However, that didn’t actually happen. The group that wanted to rest got distracted with the shops where as Laura, Matt and I found an ice skating rink and decided to skate for a few minutes. However, it wasn’t exactly ice…in fact, it was plastic. We got our skates and then tried skating on this plastic surface. It was truly hilarious. The skates did not work at all and tried to slide sideways out from under you. You pretty much had to walk, rather than skate, but we still had a great time. By the time everyone made it back to the hostel we were getting pretty tired. We visited, played card games and chatted in the hostel while we waited to go out to dinner. For dinner we found a nice Indian restaurant with some great food. We planned on going out afterwards but honestly we were all so exhausted so we decided to call it a day.

Saturday was another full but absolutely amazing day. Rather than spend the morning in Lisbon we took the 30 minute train ride to Sintra. Sintra is home to tons of castles, palaces and monasteries and we planned on seeing some of the best. Upon arriving in Sintra we bought a round trip bus pass to a few of the sites and began our first stop at the Sintra Vila, which holds one of the palaces. We got off the bus and walked around for a bit but rather than spend our money on this palace we decided to wait for the better one, so we took the next bus up to the castle. This castle was beyond anything I can describe. I felt like I was lost in a forest and came across the ruins of a forgotten civilization. When we arrived at the castle we were the only ones around. It was like we had the entire place to ourselves. We wondered around the castle, running across the walls (that great resembled those of the Great Wall of China) and hiding from each other in the towers. It was a remarkable experience. Eventually we decided to leave and took the next bus to our last stop, the palace. This palace was so different from the castle we had just been in. Whereas the castle was ruins this palace was decorated in color, tiles and so many designs. We were able to walk around the palace’s three floors and see some of the antique furniture of the past royalty of Portugal. It was all so interesting but we had to head back to Lisbon so we caught the bus back to Sintra, grabbed an amazing lunch at a nearby café, and walked around while we waited for the next train to arrive. By the time we made it to Lisbon again it was just after 4 in the afternoon. I wanted to go see a few of the sites in the city that we had missed the day before. We all headed towards the tram; unfortunately we had to walk by the shops to get there. So we missed the first tram by literally seconds and had to wait 20 more minutes before the next would arrive. When we got on the next tram we found out that there are actually a north and south line for each number…and we were on the wrong one. So we ended up wasting our last hour of daylight on tram rides and missing the sites before they closed. I was pretty bummed about this, but at least I had one more day. We walked around the city for bit more, exploring some local vendors near the plaza and then grabbed a few pastries before heading back to our hostel. We relaxed at our hostel, rested for a bit and then had dinner with the staff. They made us some amazing food and it was so convenient to have everything at the hostel and not have to worry about finding a place nearby. The group wanted to head out and find a few bars but I wanted to get everything planned for the morning, I had another really long day to prepare for. They all had flights in the morning but mine wouldn’t be until 7 at night. So they went out and I headed to the room and to bed shortly after.

Sunday morning I woke up bright and early, put my luggage into storage, ate a quick breakfast and then headed out into the city for my last day. I started off by heading across town and up one of the hills in search of a cathedral (Se’) that Lisbon is famous for. I had everything mapped out and it seemed easy enough. Yeah, no. The signs for this “famous” cathedral were nonexistent. I wondered around the streets looking for this cathedral only to find about 3 other churches. So I went into all of them and got to see and understand more about Portugal’s religion. Finally, when I was about to give up, I came across the Cathedral! Talk about a relief. From the outside it didn’t seem very impressive; however the interior was impressive along with the people inside the cathedral. When I made it to the cathedral it was just in time for mass to begin. I sat in the back to observe. Outside you could hear the massive bells ringing and inside it was completely medieval. I decided to head out shortly after and went in search of the castle nearby. It was so much easier to find than the cathedral had been. I really enjoyed this castle because it was so similar to the castle in Sintra. It was completely in ruins but a lot more preserved and not nearly as remote or secluded. There were definitely a lot more people visiting this castle then there had been in Sintra. I was able to see another great view of the city, explore the ruins, and visit a museum in the castle. Afterwards I headed back down the hill and to the harbor to catch the metro. I took the metro across town to a few museums. The first museum was holding a free recital of violinists. They were unbelievable however it was very brief. Right next door was another museum that housed Portugal’s modern art. Sunday was a free day so I explored the exhibits. They were interesting…but modern art isn’t exactly my cup of tea. I am more of renascence fan. After the museums I hopped back on the metro to go to Basilica Estrella. This Basilica had a quaint little garden I wondered through for a while. It reminded me of a small version of Retiro in Madrid. From the garden there was a stunning view of the basilica and the amazing architecture on its front. Again I arrived just in time for mass so I decided not to go inside of this one. I decided to head to a nearby cemetery. I don’t know why, but I really wanted to go to one. And honestly, it was probably one of my favorite things in Lisbon. I think I spent at least two hours just wondering around the cemetery. It was so vast and all the tombs and crypts where so different from each other. I don’t think I found one that was the same. Everything was so beautiful. Families had left gifts and flowers for their loved ones; it reminded me so much of Day of the Dead. The cemetery also had a stunning view. It overlooked the whole city and from the hill you could see the Golden Gate Bridge and Statue of Christ across the water. After wondering around the cemetery I decided I better make my way back to the city center. I decided to walk…bad decision on my part. I didn’t realize it was going to take over an hour and half to get back there. Luckily I had tons to look at as I made my way down the riverfront but by the time I made it back to my hostel my body was screaming in protest. I grabbed my bags from the luggage room, took the bus to the airport and waited patiently to board my plane. Finally I was on the plane back to Madrid, where I promptly fell asleep. I woke up just as we were landing and I took the metro home. As soon as I made it into my bedroom I fell on my bed and was asleep instantly; I was so exhausted. It was an amazing trip, and just what I needed to get things off my mind.

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Photos

LISBOA!
we had a great time with this :)

Lisbon: Cathedral
After the Fire

Sintra
Me